STTR Phase I: Microwatt-scale GPS Tracking and Timing Platform

该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为下一代设备提供更有效的基于GPS的位置感知。在过去的20年里，GPS设备已经从砖头大小的接收器缩小到手机、手表和宠物项圈。 该项目引入了一种变革性的GPS跟踪方法，将大大降低平均功耗。 这将允许GPS跟踪设备可以持续几个星期的一个小电池。 这将在商业和日常生活的许多方面带来切实的社会效益：紧凑的货运跟踪标签可以确保货物不会丢失;嵌入式商品和资产标签可以跟踪被盗物品并提醒当局其位置;徒步旅行者和搜索和救援可以依靠便携式导航设备，一次充电可持续数周;个人健身设备可以在几天或几周内而不是几小时内跟踪健身目标;执法部门可以使用GPS标签从远处安全地跟踪嫌疑人;手机可以提供始终在线的后台GPS定位，允许应用程序扩展其功能。 所有这些好处，以及更多，这一小型企业技术转移研究（STTR）第一阶段项目确定了全球定位系统（GPS）接收器微芯片的可行性，该微芯片以100 uW的平均功率提供连续的实时定位和定时-比当前最先进的技术水平提高了10倍。在射频（RF）和基带硬件设计方面的技术进步可以有益于接收机研究和设计的许多方面。当RF单元关闭时，微瓦级晶体振荡器允许RF系统中更精确的计时。 这可以导致更智能的RF协议，在需要发送或接收时准确唤醒。 快速启动前端技术还可以使采用时分复用频率共享方案的设备受益。该平台可以允许在地理区域中的所有设备上同步到微秒精度的时钟。 这为无线传感器网络同步和通信协议的研究开辟了新的途径。 进一步的研究可以调查非GPS同步源以及室内用途：如果本地节点改为广播a. 这些本地节点本身可以通过外部天线与GPS同步，从而实现无线传感器网络的室内和室外完全同步。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to provide more efficient GPS-based location awareness for next-generation devices. Within the last 20 years, GPS devices have shrunk from brick-sized receivers to cell phones, wrist-watches, and pet collars. This project introduces a transformative approach to GPS tracking that will greatly lower the average power consumption. This will allow for GPS tracking devices that can last weeks on a single small battery. There would be a tangible societal benefit in many aspects of commerce and day-to-day life: compact freight tracking tags can ensure shipments do not get lost; embedded merchandise and asset tags can track stolen items and alert authorities to its location; hikers and search and rescue can rely on portable navigation devices that lasts weeks on a single charge; personal fitness devices can track fitness goals over days and weeks instead of hours; law enforcement can use GPS tags to safely track suspects from a distance; cell-phones can provide always-on background GPS positioning, allowing apps to expand their capabilities. All of these benefits, and more, are realizable with the proposed 100 uW GPS platform.This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project establishes the feasibility of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver microchip that provides continuous real-time positioning and timing at 100 uW average power - a 10x improvement over the current state-of-the-art. The proposed techniques leverages state-of-the-art advances in radio-frequency (RF) and baseband hardware design that can benefit many aspects of receiver research and design. The microwatt-scale crystal oscillator allows more for accurate timekeeping in an RF system when the RF unit is off. This can lead to smarter RF protocols that wake-up exactly when needed to transmit or receive. The fast start-up front end technology can also benefit devices that employ time-multiplexing frequency sharing schemes. The platform could allow for a clocks that are synchronized to microsecond accuracy across all devices in a geographic area. This opens new avenues of research in wireless sensor network synchronization and communication protocols. Further research could investigate a non-GPS source of synchronization as well for indoor use: the proposed approach would work if a local node were instead broadcasting a. These local nodes could themselves synchronize with GPS through an external antenna, leading to complete indoor and outdoor synchronization of a wireless sensor network.